Reference no: EM133588646
Business Background
Fly-by-Night University (FNU) was incorporated in the late 2000's in response to two main problems facing the Jamaican education sector first, the country was losing trained persons seeking additional educational and employment opportunities overseas and second, higher education programmes were proving to be an expensive option that was only available to a few Jamaicans who could afford them.
The President of FNU saw a great entrepreneurial opportunity and recognized that something had to be done to provide more accessible, high quality and flexible higher education training programmes to Jamaicans in both urban and rural areas.
At start-up FNU offered Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in a few subject areas: Management Information Systems, Finance, Business Administration, and Tourism FNU plans to increase its offerings to include more subject areas and is currently in the process of hiring qualified persons to deliver the courses in the upcoming programme.
Ms. Fullerton, the payroll clerk at FNU, is very concerned about the impact "the increase in faculty will have on her performance and ability to timely complete the monthly payroll.
Currently, Ms. Fullerton calculates payroll deductions and net pay manually. She also writes up and issues salary cheques at the end of each month. To keep track of payroll details, Ms. Fullerton creates a monthly payroll report on a word processor. Ms. Fullerton has no efficient way to calculate and record payroll information; it is also very difficult to analyze the payroll data in detail. Ms. Fullerton is quickly realizing the necessity of using information technology to ease the paperwork burden, especially with the impending increase in staff. Ms. Fullerton realizes that automating the payroll activities will also improve her performance and efficiency. She has convinced the Board of Directors at FNU to approve the expenditure for an electronic payroll system. Ms. Fullerton hires you to design a spreadsheet application that can be used to determine payroll deductions and net pay. The spreadsheet application should also allow Ms. Fullerton to summarize and analyze the payroll data at varying levels. She also wants the worksheets in the application to be appropriately formatted, and have a consistent, professional, and well-organized appearance.
Describe the problem and opportunity facing the business. Additionally, Describe any limitations you have found that would lower the effectiveness of the solution developed for this case. For any limitations you have discovered, outline suggestions for improvements.